Scott Aniol Agrees With Us! (in Theory) - Part 1

Alright guys, we're going to do one more video for the week. This is by request. Many people have requested that I take a look at this

Eschatology Matters podcast with Scott O 'Neill, and I had planned on doing it anyway, but I haven't done it yet, and so why don't we just do the live response thing, you know?

We'll do an eight -parter or nine -parter. Who knows how long we'll go? That's the bottom line. Bottom line.

So anyway, yeah, you know, Scott O 'Neill. Well, actually, before I get into this, let me just say this. I'm in a great mood, so I'm going to be very charitable today.

Very charitable indeed. I'm in a great mood because the Mets won the World Series yesterday. Simple as that.

Simple as that. No, they didn't, but they might as well have.

I mean, you see me wearing this Mets hat for a little over a year probably, and that entire time there's been a big dark cloud over it.

I've been a very downtrodden and depressed Mets fan, but yesterday we beat the

Braves 16 -4. That was the best Mets game I've seen in two years since the all -star break of 2022, and that's when we imploded.

Since the all -star break of 2022, this is the best Mets game I've seen, and it's the best series that I've seen. You know, we took two out of three against the

Braves in Atlanta. Big win, 16 -4. It got so bad. We were beating their, you know what, so bad that they put in a position player to pitch.

That's how you know you're giving them a good shellacking, and promptly hit a grand slam off the position player, and it was also one of our ex -players, which made it really fun.

But anyway, huge stuff. Huge stuff. I've seen more life in the last three days in the Mets than I have in the last two years, two and a half years, three, one, two and a half years?

I don't know how many years. Who cares? Who cares? So yeah, good mood. Good mood, and for all the Braves fans out there, don't worry.

Your team is still really good, and they're still better than the Mets. We all understand, but not this week.

Ha ha ha! Not this week. Anyway, I know you guys don't care about the Mets, but I do, so that's a thing.

It's my channel. All right, let's jump into this. What I am expecting from Scott and Neil, I'm expecting Scott to say a lot of things that make a lot of sense.

I think Scott is one of these guys, I'm blocked by Scott, by the way, because he was one of the prime offenders during the clown shoes period of the anti -Christian nationalism events of last year.

He was one of the worst offenders, and he was mercilessly mocked, as it should be, and of course he blocked me for that, and that's okay.

That is quite all right, but I'm expecting a lot of smart things, because I think Scott, actually, even though he was the worst offender when it came to the

Christian nationalism stuff, the clown shoes stuff, he actually also is, in my opinion, probably one of the sharpest when it comes to this stuff, and he actually understands some of the issues and stuff like that.

He still gets a lot wrong, but I think I'm going to agree with him a lot, but I'm also going to have some trademark reasonable

Latino pushback, and so let's see, let's check it out. I skipped the introduction because, not that I don't care about Scott's background, but I'm not going to respond to that.

We're going to go right to the part where they start discussing nations. By the way, Eschatology Matters, they break up their podcasts, so you can easily jump to whatever you want.

Professional, very professional, good job. Okay, so you've got, let's try to jump in. I wanted to talk a little bit about nations on the front end.

You've got the book Citizens and Exiles. I kind of found some ties to a previous book you'd written, which is a book on worship, as you intimated,

By the Waters of Babylon, Worship in a Post -Christian Culture. We can get to that in a minute, because there were some interesting themes there, but just first getting to nations, maybe, and Scott, I don't know the best way to approach this, so before I ask any questions or anything, just walk me into a little bit about nations in general.

What do you see biblically from this theme of nations? How are they developing? Before we get into the here and now, maybe, what cross -biblically are we talking about when we refer to nations?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and there's been a lot of discussion on this, and I would say even people on my side of the

CN debate, I actually disagree with, probably, on this issue a little bit. All right,

I am going to make a declaration. This I command. We've got to stop referring to Christian nationalism.

Such an awesome and descriptive phrase, Christian nationalism. We can't refer to it as CN anymore, especially when you've got that accent,

CN. It sounds like sin. These guys are wordsmithing us, man. This is some hocus -pocus stuff right here, the

CN side of the debate. I don't like that, and even when you don't have the accent, it sounds like CN.

It's like CN, CN. Owen Strawn says this too, CN. That's like the official way to talk about it,

CN. No, it's Christian nationalism. It's not CN. This I command. I think, obviously, the modern nation -state is somewhat different than nations in scripture, but they're still similar in that a nation is a group of people united by a common language, culture, heritage, laws, land, all of that.

Biblically speaking, which is to say ethnicity in certain parlance, ethnicity.

See, that's the thing. I think that's where a lot of like, oh, you guys are racist stuff comes from, because they say, oh, you guys are ...

It's ethno -nationalism, right? He said that a nation is a shared tradition.

It's a shared heritage, a shared culture, and stuff like that. There was a really interesting tweet that he had put out, and I have it on the screen over here.

Let me show it to you. Hold on, hold on. There we go. There we go.

I had to pull it up on not my account, because I'm blocked, but here's what it says.

It says, ethnicity is a group of people with a shared heritage. Culture is how people behave.

Keeping those distinct is very, very important. Now, there is a difference between ethnicity and culture, but if you look at the word heritage, what it talks about are shared, valued qualities or objects or cultural traditions.

What he just described when he's describing a nation is he's describing ethnicities, essentially.

If you look through history, this is very obvious that we look at ethnicities as nations.

Even today, many nations are ethnic nations. Japan is an ethno -state.

People are very terrified to hear about ethno -state, but this is common. Ethiopia is an ethno -state.

Now, there's a lot of different tribes and stuff in a place like Ethiopia.

I happen to know a lot about Ethiopia. It's a lot of different languages and stuff like that. We understand that there's some nuance here that needs to be had, but you should not shy away from that word ethnicity.

He didn't use that word, but he described everything that an ethnicity is. It's no surprise that the word nation is ethnos.

It's a real word, and it really means something. In the

United States, we have a very weird situation where we have a country, but do we really even have a nation?

Do we have a nation here? I think we do, but there's a lot of ways to look at that and say, yeah, but do we really?

You know what I mean? Anyway, I appreciate his definition there.

He's describing ethnicity without saying it. Even though he wants to make a distinction, ethnicity is a group of people with shared heritage.

Culture is how people behave. Culture is part of ethnicity. It really is. I firmly believe that nations can, should, and will worship

Christ as nations. I affirm that. I believe that. I think that's probably a point of agreement, and maybe a point at which

I disagree with some, even on my side. Yeah, like Owen. He disagrees with Owen on that.

Good on you, Scott and Neil. Hats off to you, because you're right. The Bible clearly says that, and it's clearly going to happen.

What's interesting, too, when you look at the Bible, it's like the nations are still there in the end, right?

They're still distinct. They're still nations, but they're all worshiping the one Lord. It's a very beautiful thing, in my opinion.

It's a very beautiful thing. But anyway, yeah, let's continue. Good stuff.

For me, it's not whether nations will submit to Christ and worship

Christ, but when and how that happens. And this is, again, where my reading of what happens in Scripture, what's promised, what's prophesied, and how that all lays out influences, really leads me to some of my eschatological interpretations, as well as interpretation of what ought to be right now.

So that's kind of where I'm at, generally, on the nations question. Very interesting, right?

Because essentially what he said there is, my eschatology tells me that the nations aren't going to worship

Christ until, I guess, Christ comes back, is probably what he's going to say, right? Christ comes back, and then the nations will worship

Christ. Okay, your eschatology says that, right? But then he also says that that also changes what should be right now.

And so this is the thing. So he's put himself in this weird position, and it's a very strange position, where he's got his eschatology that he holds very strongly.

He holds it so strongly that anybody who doesn't hold that eschatology, he's now got to fight them, even if they're doing something that is objectively good.

So if I'm saying, hey Scott, I don't hold your eschatology, right? I don't hold your same eschatology. And even if I did,

I'm still going to work today to plot and plan and scrape and fight and claw so that the nations worship

Christ today, before Christ comes back. I might not believe it's going to happen until Christ comes back, but I'm going to work, and I'm going to do what

I can today to disciple the nations, and so that they all worship Christ as nations.

That's what I want, right? Whether my eschatology agrees with you or not, that's what I want today. Scott will fight you for that.

He'll say, no, no, no, no, no. It'll be bad for the nations to worship Christ today. He wouldn't say that.

Would he say that? But he acts like that. And so that's very weird. That's where eschatology kind of goes off the rails, right?

Because I'm not really that worried about your eschatology in general, right? Until you start to fight and make enemies of people that don't share your eschatology.

And that's what Scott has done here with the anti -Christian nationalism clown shoes debate, right? Where it's like, no, the nations aren't going to worship

Christ until after Christ comes back. And so therefore, to try to make the nations worship

Christ now is wrong or sin or evil, or I got to fight you on that. Like, that doesn't make any sense.

That doesn't make any sense. And not all pre -millennial type people are like that. And you don't have to be like that.

You know what I mean? It reminds me of my, yeah, I talk about this all the time, but there's a woman in my life who loves children.

You know, her eyes light up whenever my kids are around her, loves kids, you know, would be a wonderful mother, but never had kids.

And she did it intentionally because of her eschatology. And it's like, your eschatology has gone off the rails there because no matter what you believe about the tribulation, whatever's going to happen, the downward spiral of our country, to make it so that you don't obey

Christ in having children now, you know what I mean? She loves kids. She wants kids. God says that he brought the man and the woman together so they could have godly offspring.

That's what he said the purpose was. So if you're marrying and you're intentionally not having godly offspring, like, that's a weird place to be, my friends.

Not every premillennial, not every dispensational, not every, you know, tribulation respecter is like that, but some are, and that's a super weird place to be.

And I'm glad you led with that, because I think that might be an unexpected place that we agree on.

So like, Psalm 2, the nations are the inheritance of the son, nations should flog before the

Lord, they should bow before him, Psalm 86, all those different... you're seeing those as that's actually talking about nations as we, and again, you pointed out like there's some differentiating features, you don't exactly have a

UN in the Old Testament, but still there's something called a nation, it's got definable features, that's still going to happen.

Is our main disagreement then going to be on the timing aspects of that fulfillment? Yeah, absolutely.

So I think, I mean, those promises to Christ in the Davidic covenant fleshed out in the

Psalms, I also recently read a book on the Psalms, and I basically argue that the Psalms is an unfolding of the

Davidic covenant, that's what we're seeing in the book of Psalms. And so I see those promises as yes, but I see them taking place after the return of Christ, that Christ comes and subjugates the nations with a sword, and then nations as nations will serve him, and then, but, you know, so it's really, it's an issue of timing and how that happens that I think

I would disagree with post -millennialism, and then with, you know, there's lots of different versions of post -millennialism, theonomy,

Christian nationalism, of course, so I don't want to broad brush at all, but... Thank you for not saying

Sian. Christian nationalism, thank you! That's all I'm asking for, Scott, just a little respect!

Yeah, the difference is how it happens and when it happens, but also, like, you fight against people that are trying to do things in the here and now that don't share your view of how it happens and when it happens.

You fight against them. It's a very weird position, it really is. In some ways it reminds me of certain abolitionists, right?

Certain abolitionists, like, if you don't share their tactics, then they fight you, and it's like, well,

I'm an abolitionist too, well, no you're not, because you don't share my tactics, and it's like, well, you know, fine,

I mean, I don't care what you call me, right, but I'm for abolition of abortion, I'm for the prosecution of females who have abortions,

I think there's no exceptions for the abortion law, no exceptions whatsoever, I'm for abolition, but I don't necessarily buy the tactics completely.

I think sometimes those tactics are probably smart and wise and good, but I don't agree with them as kind of like a peanut butter, you spread that tactic on everything and that's the way to go.

I don't think that's the case, right? And so that would be fine if we disagreed on tactics, but here's the thing, it's not just a disagreement on tactics, a lot, or not a lot, but some abolitionists will now fight you and will work against you in your efforts in that way.

It's a very, it goes beyond a mere disagreement, it goes into the point where, well, now you're insane, you're a compromiser, you're this and that, and it's like, okay,

I mean, whatever, you can say whatever you want, but it's a very strange place to be, you know what I mean? It's a very strange place to be.

I definitely more align with the Doug Wilson style of abolition, there's no question about it, like, you know, run all the plays, do everything you gotta do, it doesn't mean that I like the pro -lifers out there who fight against abolition bills,

I don't think there's any good excuse for that, it just seems completely crazy to me, but so I wouldn't do that, and I agree with the abolitionist criticism of pro -life pretty much completely, but yeah, the tactics thing,

I mean, abolition is a non -starter, right? Like that has to be, it's a must, abolition is a must, but the tactics

I think are definitely debatable, 100%. Let's continue. For me, it's timing,

I don't disagree at all that nations as nations can and should and will serve

Christ as nations, for me, it's the timing issue. Okay, so let me back up a little bit then.

That's fine, all that is fine, and if you are with him on that, I got no beef with you, I got no beef with you, let's just not pretend though that that people that don't share that and are actually working to make this happen in our epoch or whatever it is before Christ comes back, that we're somehow enemies that need to be destroyed, right?

That you need to now use every leftist trick in the book to destroy, because that's what

Scott decided to do, right? So it's just a very weird place to be, I think I've made my point, you get it, let's go.

And we can walk back into this a little bit, but again, not to, and I appreciate you saying the broad brushstrokes thing, because that seems to happen, and I've committed this error a lot in these conversations, so we want to avoid that, but you in general, would it be safe to say you're coming from kind of a historic pre -millennial perspective?

Yeah, I would describe myself as a non -Laddian historic pre -millennialist.

I don't like George Ladd, I think he basically is only a pre -millennialist based on Revelation 20, and that's it.

My pre -millennialism is more rooted in what

I see as the overarching trajectory of God's kingdom plan as it's unfolded in scripture.

So I think right in line with many of the, many if not most of the early sure fathers were pre -mill, or people like J .C.

Ryle, Ferocious Bonar, arguably Charles Spurgeon. I often joke, you can prove anything with Spurgeon, because he's kind of all over the place some places.

Finally, some honesty about Spurgeon. I completely agree.

I completely agree. No disrespect to Spurgeon, but oftentimes when

I see a Spurgeon quote being used, it's the kind of quote that's like, is it really in context, number one.

And number two, I could find like 10 Spurgeon quotes that actually would say the opposite of what you're trying to say.

And I don't think necessarily that it was Spurgeon that was all over the place. I think a lot of people didn't understand Spurgeon. That's what

I think is going on. But maybe there's, I mean, he's just a man, he can contradict himself, right? But yeah, that's the honest take on Spurgeon.

You can kind of prove anything with Spurgeon. I totally agree. Peter Masters, who

I know well, would argue strongly that he's not a pre -mill. But so that kind of that version of historic premillennialism is where I would fall.

So that's where I see the nations subjugated to Christ and serving him and worshiping him as something that has been promised.

It will occur when he comes and subjugates the nations by the sword.

But then also because I'm premill, I see those promises of the nations coming and worshiping

Christ as being also at the same time. There's still sin, there's still death, there's still nations in our current sense.

So I think if you view the three broad escholotical positions as sort of a

Venn diagram, there's overlap between premill and amill, there's overlap between amill and postmill, and there's overlap between postmill and premill.

And where I find overlap with postmill is affirmation that the nations will come, that the kingdom blessings are prior to the new heavens and the new earth.

But where I would disagree, obviously, with postmill is that they're not before the second coming.

So there's no current in this age. So this is where I have overlap with amill. There's no current physical manifestation of the kingdom of Christ in this age before he comes again.

Okay. Yeah. And remind me, well, I can't ask you, I'll make a note, we need to get to the kingdom thing, because that was part of what you wrote on in the book.

It comes out a lot, a lot in these discussions, obviously, kingdom of God is kind of one of those huge foundational issues.

So okay. So looking Old Testament then, because we kind of, you know, loosely referred to a couple of passages, you've got, you know,

Psalm 22, Psalm 2, Psalm 110, Daniel 7. So like nations called to submit in the

Old Testament. And again, I think you would probably be right there with most of us and not trying to split the old from the new, you know, too drastically.

But at the same time, we see nations in the old, we see the nations in the eternal state, walking to the throne, submitting to the son, being his heritage.

Can nations right now? Well, let me ask you kind of a twofold. Scott, number one, is it proper for Christians right now to call nations to submit in whatever form that takes?

But is it proper for us to seek nations repenting as nations? And number two, can a nation submit in the here and now?

Good question. Good question. This is why I like the Eschatology Matters podcast.

You know, it's not just because they invited me on their show, which was a great episode, and you should definitely watch it. But he asks the good questions.

He asks the logical question. So it's like, okay, I see we disagree on the timing.

I see we disagree on the means, right? We've made that clear.

Okay. But in his mind, Josh Howard here is thinking, yeah, but you're fighting against us, those of us that are calling the nations to repent now.

So here's the question. Is it appropriate for us to insist or plot and plan and scrape and fight and claw that the nations honor the

Lord, right? Because, okay, you know, they're not going to, that's what you think. But should we call them to that?

Are they responsible to do that? Is that what they should do? Should we be working towards that, even knowing that we're going to fail, right, according to your system?

Good question, Josh. Yeah. So I would say, yes, it is absolutely proper to call nations to repentance now, just like it was in the

Old Testament. There's absolute continuity here. In both testaments, we call nations to surrender.

But just like in the Old Testament, I wouldn't expect any nation to actually do that, or, you know,

I would not be given the inheritance of the nations then, neither will he during this age, because, again, all of those, you know, all of those prophecies concerning the nations being subjugated, not all of them, but most of them,

I see directly connected to violent overthrow by Jesus himself, right?

I mean, you know, you look at Psalm 2 -9, you will break them with the rod of iron and dash them into pieces.

So we call them to repentance now. Absolutely, I have no problem with that whatsoever.

We call individuals to repentance, we call kings to repentance, we call nations to repentance. And individuals can absolutely, through the regenerating power of the

Spirit, come to faith in Christ, right? In the Old Testament now, there's continuity there as well.

But the, you shall break them, was future then, is still future now.

Psalm 72, right? Another one of these psalms that promises nations will come,

Christ will receive the nations for inheritance. There's bloody war language there, right?

He will crush them, the enemies will lick the dust, kings will fall before him, nations will serve him.

Psalm 110, right? Same kind of thing. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.

He will execute judgment among the nations. So I see all of those as saying, yes, we call them now, we call them to repentance, we call them to submit to Christ as Lord.

But it's not going to happen in a national sense until Christ comes and with a sword from his mouth, you know, picturing the violence and the enforcement by the

Son of God himself, that won't happen until Judgment Day. Okay. So Scott, like, this is very interesting because he says, yes, you do call the nations to repentance.

Okay. Okay. That's good. I agree. I agree. So then why are you fighting us so aggressively?

Why do you use the leftist toolbox to try to destroy the reputations and the lives of people that are

Christian nationalists, that are calling the nations to repentance and also taking action to make it happen?

If that's appropriate, if that's appropriate, why do that? Why did you put on your clown shoes day after day after day after day after day?

Why do that? If it's appropriate, if it's totally appropriate what we're doing? I wonder if Josh is about to ask because he looks a little exasperated, just a little bit.

So number one, this is really helpful because this is a lot of similarity between where we're at, but obviously the timing's going to be a little different from where we're approaching this.

What sort of mile markers are you looking at for those timing indicators? Because I know... All right, we're going to stop there.

We're not going to go into the mile markers. This is Josh right up his alley here.

Eschatology matters. I like this. I like this. Yeah, but Josh noticed the same thing I did. There's a lot of agreement here. And I don't think

Josh is the kind of guy to bring this up, but in my mind, the first thing I go to is, okay, so what was with the clown shoes?

If this is all appropriate, we got this much agreement, we disagree on the timing, fine. We can acknowledge that.

What was with the clown shoes? Why do that? Valid question,

I think. That's what I think. I think it's a valid question. In any case, that is it for today.